Texas Revolution

The Texas Revolution (2 October 1835-21 April 1836) was a revolution that occurred in the Mexican province of Tejas from 1835 to 1836, with Texan settlers under Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin taking up arms against the Mexican government and winning the de facto independence of the Republic of Texas. The revolution was caused by a deep cultural and politicaldivide between the Texan settlers and the Mexican government; from 1821 to 1836, several American settlers were invited to Tejas to form their own colonies and become Mexican citizens, as the Mexican government needed more people if it was to settle the sparsely-populated region. The Texans were already discriminated against, being forced to convert to Catholicism and living in a region that was under the rule of a foreign government. In 1835, when President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna transformed the government of Mexico from a federal republic into a centralized dictatorship, the people of Texas petitioned for independence, leading to Stephen Austin's arrest. The Texian Army was formed by Texan settlers and floods of American volunteers from the United States, and the Texians seized several Mexican outposts across the state, including the one at Bexar (now San Antonio), by mid-December 1835. The Mexicans managed to recapture Bexar after the Texans made a bloody stand at the Alamo mission in early 1836, with Santa Anna himself leading an army of 6,500 troops into Texas to crush the 2,000-strong Texan army. However, Houston's army managed to surprise Santa Anna's army at the Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836, dealing it a decisive defeat. Santa Anna was captured by the Texans, and he was forced to recognize the independence of a new "Republic of Texas" that had been declared a month earlier. The Mexican Army withdrew south of the Rio Grande, and Texas would be a de facto independent republic until its 1845 annexation by the USA.